


5 Times RSD Won

by ObservationalObsessive



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: 5+1 Things, ADHD, ADHD Ned Leeds, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Ned Leeds is a Good Bro, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, Self-Esteem Issues, adhd peter parker, rsd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 05:10:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14867237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObservationalObsessive/pseuds/ObservationalObsessive
Summary: + 1 Time He Talked About It-“Emotional disruptions are the most impairing aspect of the [ADHD] condition at any age.”Rejection-Sensitive Dysphoria is one of the worst things Peter Parker has ever had to deal with and he's completely spent. The biggest problem is that he's convinced himself that it's something he needs to just get over somehow. Until the one time he finally starts to talk about it.





	5 Times RSD Won

Ned Leeds had never been part of the rich crowd at school. The reason for that, however, wasn’t actually what most people would have guessed. It was more of a choice than anything, although he may not have fully known he was making it at the time.

Back in the fourth grade, when his family had moved and he’d started at a new school, Ned had met Peter Parker. He had decided from that first day that Peter was going to be his very best friend.

So it hadn’t really been a thought out choice between the wealthier kids and Peter but… he had still made it. And since then, he didn’t think any of the other kids had really noticed that he wasn’t exactly a charity case.

Not that Peter was either, of course! It was just that it was the kind of thing people said. And they said it about both of them, even though Ned’s family and Peter’s family weren’t exactly in the same...  _financial situation,_ as Ned’s parents always phrased it.

And even though he wasn’t really part of that  _in crowd_ , there were things about Ned’s life that were just different than Peter’s. One of those things was his family’s health insurance, thanks to his mom’s job. So, when Ned was diagnosed with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, he started going to see a behavioral therapist. They said it was mild enough that they didn’t think he would need medication. They would just need to figure out how to work with it and make sure it didn’t drag him down in school.

Ned had never seen any reason to bring it up, so he didn’t really think about whether or not Peter knew about it. In fact, they never really spoke about it at all until the year before they started high school, when Ned started to notice more about Peter than he had before.

The reason for this was that his therapist kept asking him questions and telling him things that made him think more of Peter Parker than himself. And he started to wonder if maybe Peter was the same as he was.

So, he asked him.

Peter had just shrugged a little uncomfortably. “I don’t know. I mean, May and Ben have mentioned it but not very much. They just say I have to try harder to focus and stuff, y’know?”

“Well… I don’t think that’s really how it works,” Ned mused, still fiddling with their LEGO set. “Like, have you seen a doctor about it or anything? I mean, have you been diagnosed? ‘Cause I think most people are when they’re kids, right?”

“I… no, not really,” Peter told him, frowning thoughtfully. “We don’t really  _go_ to the doctor very much. Ben says it gets expensive and he’s really smart about stuff anyway so we just… take care of it here unless it’s too bad for that.”

After that, Ned had asked his therapist, Sylvia, about it. He read up on things beforehand and made a list of every single reason he thought Peter might have ADHD too and then he showed the paper to Sylvia in the hopes that she could diagnose his friend as well.

She had looked at it over the thick, orange frames of her glasses and hummed thoughtfully. Her humming had annoyed him when he was younger but it had come to be something he just thought was funny after a while. “Well,” she said after a few minutes too long, looking up at him from the page and crossing her wrists lazily over one knee, which was perched over the other, still holding the paper. “It seems like you’ve been pretty thorough here, Ned.”

He nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, so I’m pretty positive about it. But what d’you think?”

“I think you may be right, Ned,” she told him slowly, like there was more coming, and leaned back in her chair. “But, unfortunately, I can’t really diagnose your friend based on your observations and without ever even  _meeting_ him. That’s not how it works.”

“Ok… what if I brought him with me next time and you could meet him then?”

A smile twitched at her lips but she shrugged slightly. “That’s not quite how it works either.”

Peter told him it was ok; he wasn’t dealing with anything  _new_ , after all, so he could just keep going the same as always and it wouldn’t matter. When Ned suggested asked Ben about getting diagnosed, Peter insisted that it wasn’t that important and there was no reason to bother Ben about it. Besides, he said, there was always a pretty good chance that Ned was mistaken and overreacting anyway.

But the more he told Peter, the more articles he texted him, the more he pointed things out all day at school, the harder it got for Peter to disagree. It only took a couple of months for Peter to admit that Ned was probably onto something. Still, he said, getting diagnosed was easier said than done and hardly seemed that necessary when he was already almost a freshman in high school.

It didn’t mean that he didn’t have questions, however, and so Ned decided to fill the role of the middle man. He felt like he had a handle on his own struggles anyway, so he started using much of time with Sylvia to ask questions on Peter’s behalf.

That was how he found out about Rejection-Sensitive Dysphoria.

He had found a brief article about it and all he could think about was Peter, so he emailed it to Sylvia and insisted that they needed to talk about it the next time he saw her.

When they did, as much as he was able to relate to and understand himself, he still couldn’t stop thinking about Peter. As far as he knew, Peter didn’t know anything about it and Ned decided then that he had to.

“Hey, Peter, have you heard of RSD?” There was no warning at all when he sprung the question on his friend, sliding onto the bench next to Peter at lunch without even saying ‘hello’.

Peter startled, tightening his grip on the apple he’d been about to bite into. “No, Ned. What is that?”

“It means ‘Rejection-Sensitive Dysphoria,’” he recited confidently, pulling his phone out and opening a more thorough article he had found the night before. “I can send you this so you can read more later but I’ll try and summarize it for you now. Basically, it means you’re, like, really sensitive to stuff like rejection or criticism. So, if someone you care about does something that makes you feel like they’re upset at you or whatever, even if they really aren’t, you either have a really strong reaction internally or externally. You could get super depressed because of it or you could just - I don’t know, start yelling or crying or something, I guess.

“So then there’s all this other stuff that comes with that like being really self-conscious or anxious about that kind of thing, or turning into a total overachiever, or just not having the emotional energy to do anything. And Sylvia said that it’s pretty much just, like, part of what ADHD is so, if you have ADHD, then you have RSD. And that’s why I just thought it would be good to tell you about it, you know?”

When he’d gotten to the end of his schpiel, which he definitely had not been practicing before going to school, he looked up at Peter and saw the discomfort immediately.

“Ok… so, I’m not going to tell you that it  _doesn’t_ sound like me,” Peter started, eyebrows drawn together tightly. “But can  _you_ tell me how to make it go away? Like, without needing an actual diagnosis?”

“Uh… no?”

Peter deflated instantly. He sighed and pushed his slightly crooked glasses up the bridge of his nose.  “Ok… so what do I do then? What do  _you_ do? I’ve never seen you get that upset about stuff…”

“Well, I don’t know… I mean, I do sometimes but it’s mostly around my parents, I think,” Ned told him, shrugging and shoving his phone back in his pocket. “And Sylvia thinks it’s why I’m so much of a people pleaser but… I don’t know. It mostly just made me think of you. Like, we already know it’s all kind of harder for you than it is for me, right?”

His friend was silent for a few minutes, his face not offering any kind of explanation. Then, without looking at Ned, he said, “Ben said I’m just an emotional person…”

“I mean, you  _are_ ,” Ned agreed without hesitation. “But now we know  _why_. And Sylvia said that it’s just good to be aware of it, you know? She  _also_ said that talking to a  _professional_ is important though, so maybe -”

“  _No,_ Ned,” Peter cut him off firmly, then took a big bite of apple. “If there’s no way to get rid of it, then I’ll just figure out how to get better by myself, ok? Besides,” he added lightly, “I have you, right?”

Ned sighed, but nodded with a smile. “Yeah. You do.”

And he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is highly influenced by my experiences with ADHD and with RSD, which is brutal. Some things, especially in this chapter when it comes to diagnosing things and whatnot, are both from my own experiences and guesswork. I wasn't diagnosed until I was in my late teens, after reading a lot of things myself and kind of self-diagnosing. So I didn't really have any experience knowingly dealing with it growing up.
> 
> At this point, everything I know about ADHD and RSD is what I know from my own life and what I've read on my own, mostly from other ADHDers on Tumblr. Speaking of, come talk to me on there 'cause that's always fun! My blog is peterparkercinnamonroll. Anyway, Tumblr is where I first came across the ADHD!Peter Parker headcanon and... I love it. If you have stories about it to recommend or suggestions and ideas about it for me, seriously let me know on Tumblr because I am so open to it!


End file.
